Learn more: www.superstables.com

What Superstables does (in plain English)

• Stablecoin Fiat, both ways: Turn USDC into EUR (to IBAN) or EUR into USDC (to your wallet). On-chain stablestable swaps (e.g., USDC EURC) are live as well.
• Wallet or bank settlement: Choose on-chain delivery or a bank payout—same interface, same receipt trail.
• Low basis points, upfront: Quotes show best net rate (fees, gas, slippage included) before you confirm.
• Finance-ready: Roles and approvals, invoices and statements, CSV/API exports—easy to reconcile.
• Compliance in the background: Policy-aware routing, KYC/KYB and sanctions screening via regulated partners, and a full audit trail for every transaction.

Why it matters now

Stablecoins move value globally in minutes. The challenge for most businesses isn’t speed – it’s doing it cleanly: region-appropriate assets, screened flows, predictable settlement, and documentation you can actually file. Superstables wraps crypto-speed in finance-friendly controls so operators and auditors can both sleep at night.

How it works (three steps)

1. Request a live quote for your route (e.g., USDC → EURC, or USDC → EUR to IBAN).
2. Confirm and settle to a wallet or bank account, with clear timing expectations.
3. Reconcile using the receipts and statements generated automatically (or pull them via API).

Who uses it

• PSPs & marketplaces moving cross-border funds.
• Corporate treasuries managing USDEUR exposure.
• Fintechs & exchanges needing dependable stablecoin rails.
• Funds/market makers that want fast, policy-clean settlement.

What’s live vs. what’s next

• Available today
• USDC EURC on-chain with tight spreads.
• USDC → EUR to IBAN (SEPA) via regulated payout partners.
• Two-way conversions between stablecoins and EUR/USD (where supported), with receipts and exports.

On the roadmap

• Broader asset coverage: Adding major USD/EUR stablecoins beyond USDC/EURC, enabled by region and policy.
• Conservative savings in USDC and EURC: deposit, convert, and allocate to transparent, low-risk yield with clear withdrawal rules.
• Crypto payments: fiat-in → stable-out and stable-in → fiat-out, with real-time tracking from initiation to settlement.
• More corridors & redundancy: additional payout partners and rails for higher uptime and faster posting.
• Safety, in one paragraph
• Superstables is built with policy-aware routing (region, asset, counterparty rules), peg monitoring (automatic safeguards during stress), and licensed partners for bank payouts. Every action produces an audit-ready trail -quotes, route decisions, fees, counterparties, and settlement references – so finance and compliance teams aren’t left guessing.

Get started

If your team needs reliable, low-bps conversion between stablecoins and EUR/USD, either on-chain or to your bank, Superstables keeps it simple and compliant.
www.superstables.com

The post Superstables: Stablecoin FX for Institutions – Wallet or Bank, Low Bps appeared first on ChipIn.

Over here at ChipIn, we strive to provide only the most accurate and up to date information in the tech scene.

Covering a broad range of topics from crowdfunding news to advances in the blockchain and IoT industry, we promise to keep you up to date with everything that you need to know.

In the upcoming weeks, we are looking forward to releasing a series of articles about the blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.

Subscribe to the free Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies Guide:

The series will help you understand these two topics in-depth even if you have zero knowledge about the subject. We wrote these articles with you, our readers, in mind to understand this exciting technology.

Here’s a sneak peek of what’s to come:

We’ll guide you through a quick 20-minute read on the blockchain and Ethereum.

If you were to choose an article to learn about cryptocurrencies in a day, this would be it.

Topics that are covered include:

• The history behind blockchains and Ethereum
• The process behind digital, public ledgers
• The blockchain mining process
• Proof-of-work and proof-of-stake systems

All of that sounds technical – trust us, we’ve broken it down into layman terms that not only simple to understand but is also accurate technical-wise.

A very straight forward article that talks about what cryptocurrencies are and how do they work.

We’ll be talking about things like:

• The full explanation of how cryptocurrencies work behind the scenes
• Explaining what the blockchain is
• Understanding the purpose and uses of cryptocurrencies

By the end of this article, you’ll be able to understand the true potential of the blockchain and cryptocurrencies in the very near future.

Article Published: Beginner’s Guide to Cryptocurrency Tokens

Don’t miss out!

ICOs are crowdfunding campaigns to raise funds for startups. These campaigns are disrupting the traditional model of venture capitalists and could change the future of startup funding.
To make things more exciting, members of the public are able to invest in ICOs. This adds a whole new level to investing in general.

Article Published: Blockchain ICOs Guide

In this article, you’ll learn:

• What ICOs are and how they work in comparison to traditional funding rounds
• What smart contracts are
• How to participate in ICOs and become an investor
• Understanding the potential rewards and returns of being an ICO investor

Feel bad for missing out on Bitcoin and Ethereum?

No worries!

In this guide, we’ll cover everything that you need to know about trading cryptocurrencies for profits. Again, this totally disrupts the old way of trading stocks on stock exchanges.

Some things that you’ll learn include:

• Where and how to buy and sell cryptocurrencies safely
• How to trade on cryptocurrency exchanges
• How to store your coins safely
• How to buy and sell tokens at good rates

Continuing from the topic above, we’ve made a Guide for potential investors to find and uncover profitable cryptocurrencies

In this step-by-step post, learn how to:

• Identify coins that are legit from the ones that are not
• Identify coins with a strong behind them
• Successfully trade cryptocurrencies through fundamental and technical analysis trading
• Spot events and signals that might indicate a fall or rise in value of a token

That’s not all….

We have another exclusive article coming soon that you definitely do not want to miss out on.

What is it?

Our team has compiled

and invited several key individuals in the scene to answer them.

These questions are not sent to just anyone; instead, we’ve gathered insights and opinions from major CEOs and influential personalities in the scene.

Want to know more about that?

Here’s what you need to do.

Leave your e-mail and we’ll notify you when each article is up.

We won’t spam you or send you nonsense about things that you don’t care about. Your information will also be kept private and confidential by our team forever – that’s a promise.
Sounds great?

Good! Leave your e-mail below and we’ll remind you the second it goes up.

The post Everything you should know about the Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrencies appeared first on ChipIn.

Is it really any good and necessary? How can it improve anything? An in-depth analysis of many projects shows that there is some confusion when those questions arise, even among projects leaders. In this article, we will try to clarify, what decentralization really is.

The word implies that decentralization is the absence of a single center. The center is a system’s unit that cannot be substituted by something or someone else, so, if it is removed from a system, the whole system degrades or even ceases functioning altogether. Not long ago, the Google cloud went offline only because of a small bug in the settings of a certain unit, which made this setting a center for the whole Google cloud. Such an incorrect setting that can paralyze the system is an example of a technical center.

Another example. Google+ no longer exists simply because Google decided to shut it down. One centralized solution by the company management leads to the network’s shutdown despite some user’s wishes to carry on using it. This is a control center.

In a word, one of the advantages of decentralization is the higher stability of a system. The truly decentralized system must remain operational even when a large part of its units (hardware) or nodes (users) went offline, are restricted or operate in improper ways. For instance, Bitcoin remains operational as long as at least one node exists. It also works properly even if one node less than half of all nodes show malicious behavior, collaborating to take the network out.

To make a system totally decentralized, numerous rules, followed by all users, are required. It is like a traffic code – many cars ride in a decentralized manner, each controlled by its driver, each of whom can be unaware of one another. Yet, when everybody follows the same rules everything works efficiently and even securely.

Control Centre – The Apple Cupertino Headquarters

Can those universal rules be considered a center of some sort? No, because it’s neither a unit nor a system’s component. Since rules are pre-defined, they cannot be withdrawn or taken away. Rules are what the system is, and it is worth to fully grasp this concept. In a decentralized system, rules are unchangeable. In the best-case scenario, rules should stay forever. However, it is never possible to foresee everything that might happen in the future, so rules must also contain some rules on how they can be changed. For instance, Bitcoin protocol requires validation by all miners of the network, otherwise, the network forks and continues to exist in several forks.

The most vibrant fork took place back in 2016 when the Ethereum community could not reach a consensus on how bugs in smart-contracts should be fixed, so the network forked into Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC).

A decentralized system has to be tolerant to changes in users numbers and to users malicious behavior. Speaking of the traffic code analogy, what makes people follow the rules? We can say that it is something similar to proof of stake. By disobeying the rules, people face the risk to pay a significant fine, and sometimes put their lives (and that of others) in danger. Both are serious reasons to obey the rules, and it (mostly) works. Even when certain users break the rules, it does not cause a total breakdown of the system.

Thus, a decentralized system shell poses the following properties:

1. No technical center – losing components (servers, users, nodes) does not make the system non-operational.
2. No control center – any decision by a small group of users does not make the system non-operational.
3. Attacks tolerance – Rules on how users and nodes cooperate are stipulated. Following the rules is rewarded and malicious behavior is punished.
4. All users are equal – anyone can join the system under the rules.

Unfortunately, most projects trying to decentralize successful business models often concentrate only on the first rule. Most try to create a single governing center. What usually happens, in that case, is, that innovation is squashed, since it remained centralized, just as the original successful business they took for a model. The main reason for this is, that most CIOs have a very imprecise concept of decentralization. Hopefully, this article will change that.

Among the most serious issues surrounding decentralized projects are data storage and access to that data. The problem is, that at the moment there are no complete solutions for decentralized data search and storage. Files storages like IPFS, Sia, Storj and Ethereum Swarm only allows you to store data, but not to search it.

Usually, databases are utilized for data storage and swift data search. Databases should not be confused with file storages. It is important to understand, those file storages simply store data as a pack of bytes – it is not concerned with what’s inside. Therefore, the data can be found only using the exact name, not the content itself. A database is a structured data storage. The data are stored in tables and it enables you to quickly find particular rows that match your search request.

To better understand the difference between data storage and database, let’s imagine a pack of files that are digital spreadsheets, like Excel or Numbers, called “My June spending”, “My July spending” and so on. From a file system’s perspective, each file is just bytes. Its content may be judged only superficially, using its name. Using file storage, you can find data about spending on a precise month, but to get a detailed understanding of what each spending was about you will need to use a special application. This way, you can recall that this June you bought a new iPhone, as well as Toblerone chocolate in the grocery store.

But what if you remember that you bought an iPhone, but you need to know what exact month you purchased it? Normal file storage won’t help you to find the answer quickly. You will need to open the files individually and search them manually whether it mentions your iPhone purchase, which would take far too much time for any company.

A database can solve this problem. With some simplification, your spending records are no longer in different files, but in one database, so you can make queries like “How many Toblerone have I purchased this year” or “when did I buy an iPhone” or even “what is my month total spending” and the database will give you the answer immediately.

When it comes to apps, databases are irreplaceable, since all apps work with data. The trouble for dApps is – there are still no decentralized databases yet. Naturally, projects, that claim to be decentralized, either do their best to stay decentralized and use data storages like IPFS (losing the ability to search data) or use centralized databases (thus putting an end to their decentralization). Whichever way, they lose the competition to centralized apps in either productivity and functionality, or in decentralization.

That’s why creating a decentralized database is so important. Just as the programmable blockchain Ethereum gave a boost to simple apps on smart-contracts, a decentralized database will start an era of serious, competitive, world-scale decentralized apps.

From our research, the most advanced decentralized database we have seen so far is Ties.DB. This DBMS is based on a distributed DBMS Apache Cassandra and implements it with publicity BFT protocol and incentive system for users. Ties.DB forms a decentralized network of farming computers with Ties.DB software that provides its resources (storage space, processing power). Their combined resources is what forms Ties.DB. Users of dApps built upon Ties.DB use those resources, paying a small price in TIE tokens. This payment is transferred to the farmers according to their contribution to processing user queries. Data that users upload to the database are replicated and split into packages to guarantee data security and high accessibility speed. Each table is stored on many nodes, but each node only stores a piece, so nodes are not complete copies of one another as may be the case in some popular blockchains.

Since everything is public, anyone with sufficient hardware resources can become a farmer, similar to most blockchain mining principles, so the network can be easily scaled to meet increasing demand.

Presently, Ties.DB is in Alpha-Version and running a test network, welcoming dApp’s designers to test it. You can give it a try at https://github.com/TiesNetwork/ties.db/releases. It also has a demo app to show how dApps can use Ties.DB: https://github.com/TiesNetwork/demo-app/releases.

The post Database as a Key to Decentralization appeared first on ChipIn.

This is a common situation that you will probably encounter soon in your day to day life; you could be talking about investments with friends and colleagues and the moment you start talking about digital currencies, you may face some mixed reactions.
There is general concern among seasoned investors that anyone who isn’t already knowledgeable in stock markets and commodity exchanges should not dabble with cryptocurrencies – it’s too risky.

Let’s set the record straight – cryptocurrencies can be an investment and they can be profitable.

While cryptocurrencies were initially thought to be the currency of the future, it is more of an investment nowadays in hopes that it will ultimately be worth more than what it initially costs.
In other words, cryptocurrencies may give you a better (which is understated) ROI over traditional stock market investing.

Here’s the catch; while knowing the basics of investing is nice, you don’t need to have that knowledge for cryptocurrencies. Despite its recent boom, the industry is still in its infancy stage and we should look forward to the next 10, 20 years instead of tomorrow.

Don’t worry though; you’re in safe hands. The cryptocurrency community is a large network of fellow investors who are more than happy to help you with your cryptocurrency questions, like us!
In today’s post, we’re going to cover the basics of identifying and investing in profitable cryptocurrencies for new investors.

Before we move on to cryptocurrencies, let’s rewind to a time when the hype over investing was this big (arguably bigger).
During the days of the dotcom boom in the late 90s, IPO (initial public offering) was introduced to the public as another channel for investments. Investors could toss money into any IPO and be guaranteed superb returns almost every time. Huge early gains by companies further fueled the hype but we all know what happened a few years later when the bubble burst.

With the exception of some companies like Amazon and eBay, most IPOs went bust after all-time highs were reached. The bubble burst served as a reminder to investors that nothing in life especially in investing is fail-safe. Over 20 years later, the new ‘bubble’, as quoted by financial experts, came. Working very similarly to the IPO craze of the 90s, cryptocurrencies began to offer ICOs (initial coin offerings) which garnered interest from major publications early this year.

Instead of raising money the traditional way, startups raise money by offering tokens or digital coins which fund the firm’s operations. This means startups do not need to rely on complicated funding rounds and pitches to secure investments for their ventures.
Investors who invest in these ICOs bank in the hope that the token rises in value over time. Many of these ICO’s are offered at fractions of a penny, in hopes of rising exponential in value down the road.
For example, if you’d have invested $1,000 in Ethereum during its ICO, you would have had at least a million dollars with you right now in terms of value.

Speaking of Ethereum, it was the platform itself that showed this new form of startup investing to the world. An ICO works similarly to a crowdfunding campaign; think of it as a Kickstarter for start-ups.
An ICO allows projects to raise money for development, whilst simultaneously providing a token to backers. The tokens resemble shares or stocks in a traditional stock market.
While ICOs are exploding in popularity, they are still in a grey area.

They are unregulated by the authorities and is therefore not guaranteed to actually provide good returns to investors. Additionally, tokens are not considered securities which are a problem with authorities like the SEC.
There is no guarantee that the development team will deliver their promises and there is also no guarantee that your investments are secure down the road.
However, no investment, even in the stock market, is a sure thing. ICOs are a new industry venture and have many unique risks that make them different (and potentially more profitable) from an IPO you will find on the stock market.

Based on the huge amounts of money that have been pouring into ICOs this year (over $1bn in less than 6 months), there is no doubt that speculation is strong in the cryptocurrency scene among investors.
Despite news of early investors turning thousands of dollars into millions(!) in under a year, the truth is that every cryptocurrency (including established ones like Bitcoin and Ethereum) is still highly speculative.
While the total market cap of every cryptocurrency in existence is just about $150 billion dollars, all of that has happened in a rapid rise which is also known as a bull run in less than a year.

However, we’ve mentioned that the crypto scene is still young. Despite its abnormal rise, we don’t know for sure whether this is acceptable or not for digital currencies. Bitcoin famously crashed in 2013 and recently in June 2017.

It has bounced back to reach an all-time high value of $3,200 – something that is impossible to achieve for shares in the stock market.
Hence, no one really knows what’s normal or not in the cryptocurrency scene. It’s best, however, to take a more conservative approach if you don’t want to lose your funds quickly.

1. Make sure the coin has a purpose

When investing in any cryptocurrency or ICO, it is important to identify the core features of a project that differentiate it from every other coin on the market.

For instance, when Bitcoin was first introduced, there were many clones of the original Bitcoin with minor tweaks such as an increased supply, quicker transaction times, or just a name change.
Fast forward to today and you’ll find out that most of these clones are dead. The only ones who made money were the creators of those copycat coins.
The best example to prove this point is by looking at Ethereum. Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum’s focus was not only to become another digital store of value. Instead, the founder realized that the same technology used to perform transactions digitally (the blockchain) can also be used to transfer data and information.

Because of Ethereum’s innovation and unique use case, it warrants a rise in value as shown by Ethereum’s rise from $10 to $400 from January to May 2017.
Ethereum allows developers to build platforms based off cryptocurrencies, develop smart contracts, as well as being a store of value at the same time. Smart contracts work exactly how they sound; terms of contracts that execute automatically based on wether conditions are met or not.

Another series of innovative cryptocurrency projects include MaidSafe, Storj, and Sia. Again, instead of being another digital currency, these projects aim to become the cloud storage of the future.
The general idea around investing in a good and profitable currency is this:

• Make sure the cryptocurrency or token has an actual use case. If it’s just as a store of value, Bitcoin does that well and there are unlimited other coins that do the same thing
• The more generic a token’s use case is, the less likely its going to succeed. If a token is just another ‘decentralised token for blah blah technical jargon’, stay clear. Remember, decentralized is a buzzword, not something that actually states what the coin is used for
• Make sure the use case is logical. A coin can have unique use cases, but not everything has to be decentralized and be done on the blockchain. For example, you may come across an ICO that markets itself as a decentralized social media platform. How can decentralization work when the whole purpose of a social media platform is to literally provide your information for it to actually become social? Use your common sense when looking at coins; if you know that there is absolutely no need for an ICO or token to use cryptography, ditch it.

2. Make sure the development is competent, reputable, and transparent

Whenever you find an ICO or coin that you’re looking to invest in, go straight to their website and look at the developer or team page.

Make sure that the developers and team members of the ICO or coin have their real name, picture, and credentials. If there is no information or if the team is anonymous, stay clear.
There is absolutely no reason for a competent startup team to not include information about themselves on the website or any other company website.

Tip: Reverse image search photos of team members on Google. If you find out that the image is fake or duplicated, avoid the project.
Once you find who the people behind the project are, Google their name and find out as much as you can about them. LinkedIn profiles are a great way of gauging whether a coin has a good team behind them.
Some good information to look out for include:

• Where did they go to school?
• What did they study/area of expertise?
• What is their work experience?
• Were they a part of an influential company before?
• Do they have any experience in this industry?
• Do they have any previous positions that shows their potential and skills?

Two other platforms to look out for other than LinkedIn is the team’s Github and Twitter profiles.

While we don’t suggest you to become internet sleuths, finding out a team’s achievements on their Github and Twitter is a good way of finding out whether a project will succeed.
Let’s say that you find a developer’s Github and they have nothing special on there, nearly an empty page.

Would you trust that developer with YOUR money to run the project?
In regards to the credibility of developers, there is a lot to be said (in a good way) if a team or developer has their credentials set to public. When a development team is public, they are regarded as the faces to the organization. Hence, they hold the responsibility and accountability of the project’s success or failure.

You could potentially have ICOs or coins built by anonymous developers, some of which may have a strong background. Common sense, however, indicates that it would be wise not to contribute to projects with anonymous developers.
There are two ways anonymous projects can go very wrong:

• There is no accountability if the developer cuts and runs, and, with no former projects to look upon
• There’s no way to know if they’re capable of delivering their promises as you know nothing about them
  A good thing to look out for when considering an ICO investment is identifying the organization in charge of handling the escrow for the ICO.

Reputable development teams will enlist organizations with a solid reputation within the finance industry to act as trustworthy holders of raised funds. With their reputation on the line, these individuals are less likely to cut and run with the raised funds.
Additionally, solid development teams will have set in place a condition where, if a certain level of funding is not achieved, the individuals who contributed will be refunded. This acts as a fail-safe in the event a project ends up underfunded.
Good teams will also have policies in place to make sure that they do not sell the tokens raised immediately. Instead, they will sell it gradually to raise funds for their project to avoid market shock.

For example, the Ethereum team raised thousands of BTC amounting to millions for their ICO. However, the team only sold 10% of their BTC each year as capital for their project.
They knew that if they were to sell all their BTC instantly, they could potentially drop the value of BTC and crash the market which is bad for cryptocurrencies. In general, good developments care less about money and more about making sure their vision is a success.

3. Does the whitepaper make sense?

When a cryptocurrency raises money for an ICO, the team will come up with a document called a whitepaper.
The white paper simply includes:

• What the project is about. The white paper will explain the vision of the project, the goals it hopes to achieve, and the technology of the coin.
• The amount of money needed to be raised for the project.
• The number of tokens or coins allocated to investors. For example, Ethereum allocated about ~80 million ETH for its ICO. In general, the fewer tokens issued, the higher its value will be due to limited supply.
• The length of the ICO campaign.

If you’re going put money into an ICO, the white paper must be the first thing you read. It may be boring or too long to read, but the white paper lays out the company’s risks and opportunities, along with the proposed uses for the money raised by the ICO.
For example, the white paper will explain if the coin holder is going to have voting rights, or if the coin pays out dividends based on a number of coins you hold and when those dividends are paid out (monthly, yearly, etc.).

If a white paper is overly optimistic, stay cautious as inflated goals often lead to disappointment. Also, if a white paper is needlessly complex (too much jargon, vague explanations, complex English, etc.), be wary as they may hide the team’s incompetence by deliberately making the project hard to understand.

4. Gather reviews and insights from cryptocurrency discussion boards

BitcoinTalk is the biggest message board for cryptocurrencies. The forum is a place where people interested in the technical details of the development of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies come together to discuss and form opinions.
New and existing cryptocurrencies usually have an Announcement thread (also known as an [ANN] thread) on the BitcoinTalk forums. This is usually the best way to find the first announcement of an ICO, what the coin has to offer, ask questions with the developers of the coin and other members of the forum.

When researching a coin, find the thread of the coin and read every single page in the thread. Many common questions (both negative and positive questions) are usually answered in the ICO’s announcement thread.
Make sure to read answers given by the official developer accounts of the thread. Are they answering all questions and concerns with genuine responses or do their posts seem canned, vague, and shady?
A simple trick to use when searching on BitcoinTalk is searching the thread with certain keywords. Negative words such as “con”, “scam”, “scamcoin”, “MLM”, and “shit” (pardon the vulgarities) are usually indicators of a poorly-run coin.
If any posts are found with these words, read the threads carefully and do your own research to see if it’s worth investing or not.

On the other hand, if a thread is too positive (almost no negative comments), double check the accounts to make sure they are legit. A team can easily pay for bots and users to fabricate and post positive comments about their coins.
Another place to find out information about a coin is by looking on Reddit. Cryptocurrencies usually have their own subreddit (e.g Ethereum’s /r/ethtrader, Bitcoin’s /r/BTC) which contains information about the coin such as upcoming events, updates from devs, as well as analysis and forecasts on the coin’s value.

5. Spread your assets, don’t put all your eggs in one basket, and only invest what you can afford to lose

Just like with any other investment, having a portfolio with multiple assets as well as spreading your risks is a sound choice. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket and invest in one coin thinking it is going to rise substantially. Instead, find 3 or 4 coins that you think is good and invest in them.
A good strategy in cryptocurrencies is to have an 80/20 or 70/30 ratio.
80% or 70% (the bulk) of your cryptocurrency investments should be put in established coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum. This amount should be kept and held by you; do not trade it unless you know what you’re doing.
After that, depending on your remaining coins and how likely it is you will reach your goals, you could put them in a diversified portfolio of riskier investments (coins that have potential but are not established yet).
Some coins that are a good shot at holding in the long run include:

• Bitcoin (BTC)
• Ethereum (ETH)
• Litecoin (LTC)
• Stratis (STRAT)
• Waves (WAVES)

6. Don’t watch the price everyday;
buying and holding is the still the best strategy in the long run

Day trading and looking at charts and buy/sell orders is not feasible for 99% of cryptocurrency investors.
Unless you have a huge capital, the gains that you get from day trading and making your decisions off small changes in a coin’s value is minimal. Not only do you not gain much, you also have a higher risk of losing your net worth along the way if you make a bad trade.

There’s also a saying in the market to never time the market. While events and development updates are decent ways of determining a coin’s future value, trying to time your way by buying and selling at the ‘right time’ will always lose your money in the long run.
For TA (technical analysis) trading to be worth it for cryptocurrencies, you should have at least $50,000 in cryptocurrencies for it to be profitable.
Instead, the best strategy for most investors is to buy and hold. You should believe in your investment and only invest money that you can afford to lose; with these two factors achieved, you don’t need to watch the price of your investments every day like a hawk.

If you made a rational investment decision, don’t let your emotions take over and negate your decisions during a price drop or rise.
We suggest checking your net worth and the market weekly, monthly, or quarterly. It’s fine to check the market every day but remember to not to get emotionally invested in it.
Not only are you risking your well-being on (technically) intangibles, you are also risking your social life and relationships by being too attached to the market and not giving enough time and attention to your personal life.

For instance, just under a month ago, Bitcoin crashed from almost reaching $3,000 to $1,800 per BTC.
Today?
1 BTC is already equal to $4,000 – nearly a 100% increase in value if you would’ve kept your calm and held your coins.

7. Don’t time the market.
There is not good or bad time to buy and sell

Again, the rule of not timing the market is so important that we have to mention in twice.
Unlike stock markets, there is no general rule when to buy or sell cryptocurrencies because the industry is so young and unknown.
If you have to follow a set of rules, these are general guidelines that will work most of the time as long as you don’t panic sell or buy:

• Only sell when you achieve your goal. If you’ve set a goal of $50,000 for your investments, sell only when you hit that figure.
• Don’t panic sell. Again, Bitcoin dropped to $1,800 from nearly $3,000 under a month ago. Ethereum fell from $400 to nearly reaching $100 in the same timeline. Today, Bitcoin and Ethereum are both worth $3,300 and $250 respectively. Not only would you have lost plenty of money by panic selling during this period, you would’ve also been in the red for your investments.
• Do not have FOMO. FOMO is an acronym for the phrase fear of missing out. Don’t buy just because everyone else around you is buying cryptocurrencies. Instead, do your own research and make your own decisions.
• Only invest what you can afford to lose. This should be taught to all investors, in all honesty. Investing in cryptocurrencies is very much like gambling. There is no guarantee for you to turn a profit; likewise, do not get emotionally invested into it.

Another reason to never time the market is that you never know what’s going to happen to the values of cryptocurrencies.
For example, when Bitcoin was $1,000, there was talk about the ‘bubble’ and how Bitcoin is overvalued. The same thing happened when Ethereum reached $50.
It’s safe to say that both currencies have proved their doubters very, very wrong.
It’s also beneficial to not compare crypto bubbles to traditional financial bubbles. A 10% change in real financial markets can wreak havoc but it’s completely normal (and expected) for cryptocurrencies.
Likewise, a 100% rise in stock prices is nearly impossible in the real world while 1,000% changes in cryptocurrencies happen regularly. Bitcoin has grown from less than a penny per unit to $3,300 for one – let that sink in.

Here are 6 red flags to spot if you are unsure of whether a coin is legit or not.
As the scene is not regulated (yet), there are many scamcoins popping up as a quick way to burn investors and make the founders money, don’t be fooled!

1. Huge returns that seem too good to be true

If it sounds too good to be true, it’s not.
Legit cryptocurrencies do not try to raise funds based on the potential returns of your investment. Instead, they take pride in their technology and goals, NOT the potential value of their coins.
This is, in general, the biggest telltale sign of a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme. In general, the greater the rate of probable returns, the higher the risk. If a coin’s marketing campaign is all about promoting the value of the coin, steer clear of it.
Whether it is through cloud mining websites, investment programs or cryptocurrencies with no real foundation, no investment can consistently generate high returns with no risk or guaranteed returns.

2. Returns are highly dependent on referrals and new members

If the primary way of earning money through a coin is through referrals or commissions, it is a Ponzi scheme.
Again, legit coins do not grow based on how many people own their coins. They do it through proper execution of their goals, good teamwork, and good technology. You do not have to play a part in their growth by getting more referrals to the coin, that’s not your job.

3. Unclear or anonymous ownership

Are the founders or the team anonymous?
As we’ve mentioned earlier, a coin with no information about the team behind it is sketchy, to say the least. Even if there is a team behind it, do a Google search on the individuals to check out their history.
There have been multiple ICOs in the past few months that were led or founded by individuals who have a history of fraud before e.g scamming investors off their money, money laundering, and stealing funds from cryptocurrency exchanges.
Only invest in coins where the team is reputable, highly skilled, and respected by the community.

4. You have to invest first to get more information

To go under the radar of authorities, many websites of scamcoins pose as legitimate businesses such as a coin wallet service, marketplace or cloud mining platform.
However, to get more information about the service, you have to either invest or signup as a member to learn more.
After your investment, the website’s material and focus appear to be different from what their main focus which is recruitment and ‘investment’ – exactly like a Ponzi scheme.

5. Closed source and having a private blockchain

For scamcoins, almost all of them are a closed source which means the code behind the coins is not released to the public. This is stark in contrast with coins like Ethereum where 100% of the source code is available for the public to see via their Github.
Similarly, scamcoins may also have private blockchains to ensure that no one except them has access to transactions on the blockchain. This is against the initial vision of the blockchain to a public, digital ledger.
You can do a quick check to see if they are listed on CoinMarketCap (although many scam coins are listed there so it’s only a minor check) which requires coins to genuine, traded on a public exchange with an API available, and must have a public URL that shows the coin’s total supply.

The post How To Identify and Invest in Profitable Cryptocurrencies | No, It’s Not Too Late appeared first on ChipIn.

The average person on the street has likely heard of Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and even blockchain. But do they use it? Despite blockchain’s growing public profile, actual adoption rates remain low. In a January 2018 survey from Global Blockchain Business, only about 5% of respondents owned cryptocurrency. Though many large businesses are experimenting with backend blockchain solutions, those solutions are still far from widespread implementation.

Slow and expensive transactions, safety concerns, and difficult-to-use interfaces are just a few of the obstacles to broader implementation. But blockchain enthusiasts shouldn’t give up hope just yet. These five projects are working hard to create a mainstream-ready, highly functional blockchain ecosystem.

Coral: Protecting Blockchain Users from Phishers

Phishing is a significant problem in the crypto community. About 10% of funds meant for new crypto projects wind up with phishers instead, and many phishers hack email and Twitter accounts to masquerade as legitimate crypto entities and offer phony “giveaways” in return for small deposits. Even experienced crypto traders often fall for sophisticated phishing scams, so it’s no wonder that many would-be blockchain users feel unsafe entering the crypto market.

Coral is a multi-blockchain project tackling the crypto phishing threat. Coral maintains a continuously updated database of fraud activity, and its decentralized blockchain crawler uses this information to graph all P2P interactions on the network. The crawler gives every blockchain wallet a trust score based on its associations with trusted or fraudulent activity and funds. When Coral users type in a wallet address, pop-up prompts automatically inform the user of the wallet’s trustworthiness (or lack thereof).

Nano: A Faster Blockchain Network

Even moderate mainstream adoption has drastically slowed many blockchain networks. During Bitcoin’s price hike in late 2017, transactions often took the better part of a day. The Ethereum network ground to a stop at around the same time due to heavy activity on the popular CryptoKitty DApp–though that activity stemmed from fewer than 200,000 users.

Nano (formerly RaiBlocks) has a solution. Their block-lattice architecture means that every network user has their own blockchain. Each account owner updates their blockchain, which makes transaction verification near-instantaneous. The network stays secure through a delegated proof of stake protocol.

Tip Blockchain: Providing User-Friendly Payment Tools

Blockchain projects can be difficult to access for users without high levels of tech, programming, and crypto literacy. Email became ubiquitous thanks to applications that allowed easy use without much understanding of the technology behind it. Blockchain needs the same kind of tools.

Tip Blockchain is one of the first blockchain companies to take the problem of user accessibility seriously. They’re building a network for sending and receiving payments. But instead of long and complicated wallet addresses, users can search for each other by username. A light desktop wallet lets Tip Blockchain users easily connect to the network, and transaction data lets users attach notes and receipts. A dedicated point-of-sale system for merchants means that there’s finally a user-friendly tool for sellers to accept crypto payment for goods and services.

Stellar: Affordable Blockchain Transactions

Blockchain networks that struggle to scale also tend to be expensive. During Bitcoin’s late 2017 bottleneck, users paid an average fee of $28 per transaction. Ethereum’s transaction fees spiked at $4.15 in January 2018, and this less-exorbitant figure is still high enough to limit innovation and activity.

Stellar is leading the blockchain world in providing low-cost network utility. This project uses a unique consensus protocol and a group of trusted anchors, such as banks and payment processors, to facilitate near-instantaneous and highly affordable financial transactions on the Stellar blockchain network. Stellar’s native Lumen tokens act as an internal asset to drive Stellar’s fiat currency processes, which let users exchange and send money across international borders cheaply and enable cost-effective micropayments (a one-cent fee covers about 600,000 transactions).

Ethereum: Building User-Ready Applications

Cryptocurrencies, for the time being, have limited appeal to potential mainstream adopters who feel uncomfortable using crypto assets as a replacement for fiat currency. But what if blockchain tokens help those people unlock new utilities in unique applications? And what if anyone, not just crypto experts, can use those applications?

Ethereum is one of the leading blockchain networks because it facilitates precisely that. Developers working on the Ethereum Virtual Machine can build a vast array of decentralized applications (DApps) that run over the Ethereum network rather than on one centralized computing location. Over 1,500 Dapps currently run on Ethereum. Ethereum’s developers are working hard on tackling its scalability challenges, planning future transactions to both sharded networks and proof-of-stake consensus protocols.

Mainstream blockchain adoption isn’t here yet, but it’s growing closer every day. These projects are helping to create a mainstream-ready blockchain world.

The post The 5 Projects Pushing Forward Mainstream Blockchain Adoption appeared first on ChipIn.

Platforms like Cosmos recently launched to much fanfare, while the mainnets of Polkadot and Cardano loom on the horizon.

While Polkadot, Cosmos, and Cardano are proof-of-stake networks, they are a slightly different iteration of another set of projects seeking to advance on-chain scalability with a novel approach — sharding.

Elrond is one of those projects and has been building momentum since its cross-shard transaction prototype that they open-sourced back in November 2018. Similar to another public blockchain network exploring a bootstrapped sharding blockchain, Zilliqa, Elrond differentiates itself by pushing the limits of sharding technology with state sharding and a wholesale transition away from PoW and into its native Secure PoS (SPoS) consensus.

With a focus on user-friendliness and linearly scalable performance, Elrond presents a unique take in an increasingly crowded field of PoS blockchains tackling scalability and interoperability.

What initially began as a research project, fueled by a passion to solve the problem of scalability and interoperability that plagues public blockchains, quickly evolved into a full-fledged endeavor to build the next-generation blockchain that would scale to mass adoption.

With a talented team of computer scientists, Elrond is pushing the limits of research and practical development of a highly sophisticated and novel concept — blockchain sharding.

A brief history of sharding will reveal that it is no brand-new technology that was born to scale blockchains. Instead, sharding — otherwise known as horizontal database partitioning — is a method for splitting a database into individual components, called shards, that are each held on a different server instance.

Applied to a blockchain, sharding comes in several distinct forms that allow the blockchain to process transactions within each shard in parallel to another shard — vastly increasing performance. Explorations into sharding for blockchains have been ongoing for several years, and separating the forms of sharding is an important consideration.

For example, network sharding is the division of nodes into shards, which process transactions in parallel. Transaction sharding is the efficient allocation of specific sets of transactions to node shards that further increases performance. And finally, state sharding, the most complex of all, involves partitioning the state of the blockchain network across multiple shards, where each shard does not store the entire state — instead functioning as an independent blockchain in communication with the other shards.

This ‘network of blockchains’ that results from state sharding is a crucial component of the ‘Adaptive State Sharding’ that Elrond has created. A combination of network, transaction, and state sharding, adaptive state sharding enables Elrond to linearly scale — even surpassing specific centralized counterparts in performance.

“Elrond is a sharded, layer one protocol designed to add 1000x improvement in performance to current iterations of blockchains by addressing throughput and speed of execution,” says Elrond Co-Founder and CEO, Beniamin Mincu.

The idea is to provide the high-performance infrastructure necessary to support mass adoption of applications on a public blockchain without sacrificing the equilibrium between decentralization, security, and performance. Ultimately, Elrond could not achieve the optimal version of Adaptive State Sharding without its complement — Secure Proof-of-Stake (SPoS).

Compared to other proof-of-stake algorithms, SPoS is designed explicitly with cross-shard communication, random validator selection, and pruning of the blockchain state in mind. Elrond’s SPoS extends the concept of Algorand’s random selection method by reducing network latency and improving the multi-signature scheme. As such, Elrond produces a robust and secure PoS algorithm for a complicated inter-shard consensus design.

The results of Elrond’s design are compelling so far. According to preliminary results of the GO implementation of their protocol that they adapted from their prototype, Elrond peaked at 3750 transactions per second (TPS) per shard. For context, Bitcoin processes roughly 4 – 6 TPS on the entire network, not just a single shard, and Visa can process upwards of 20k TPS at peak capacity.

With both Adaptive State Sharding and SPoS, Elrond’s pending testnet has subsequently sparked significant anticipation.

Elrond’s results so far are impressive, but even they will admit there is no ‘one protocol to rule them all.’ The broader notion within the industry is that, eventually, a network of interoperable blockchains will communicate and transfer data/value with each other in a mutually beneficial dynamic.

An important caveat of interoperability, however, is that many blockchains bootstrapping as PoS are only compatible with ‘fast-finality’ consensus blockchains — aka other PoS blockchains. For example, Cosmos requires a custom bridge to Ethereum in its current proof-of-work format, called Ethermint. Elrond will work in a similar format where bridges between disparate chains require specialized adapters if they are not compatible with Ethereum’s EVM — which Elrond will connect to with a bridge.

The larger takeaway though is that an ecosystem of PoS blockchains with an emphasis on scalability and communicating with each other is on the cusp of materializing. The market will eventually determine which blockchains prevail for specific use cases, and Elrond is positioning their platform as the ‘user-friendly blockchain for deploying programmable money and unstoppable applications.’

A high-performance infrastructure blockchain congruent with the exacting demands of modern applications should prove a significant draw for many developers, and eventually, more users. Public blockchains have come a long way since Bitcoin’s inception, but they still struggle to attract mainstream users. Perhaps an ecosystem of scalable, interoperable blockchains can shift that narrative.

The post Elrond’s Push to Be The Next Scalable Proof-of-Stake Public Blockchain appeared first on ChipIn.

This doesn’t mean the ticketing industry is completely free of controversy. Ticket scalpers, with the help of automated bots, are one of the biggest issues. It becomes close to impossible to purchase a ticket for popular events anymore and it drives up ticket prices up to 20 times the original price without adding any value. Furthermore, people still try to scam others by selling fake tickets. Market fragmentation and uncertain ticket provenance remain problems in search of a solution.

Evedo is a blockchain based platform that unifies all businesses and participants involved in organizing events. Evedo wants to build a marketplace and a true ecosystem that will help the $850+ Billion event industry grow by connecting all parties without middlemen.

Evedo will be conducting an Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) on Bitforex from the 16th of April

An Initial Exchange Offering, as the name suggests, is carried out on the platform of a cryptocurrency exchange. In contrast to Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), an IEO is managed by a crypto exchange on behalf of the startup that wants to raise money with its newly issued tokens.

An increasing number of crypto currency exchanges have started to accept IEOs. One of the first in the series was Binance, which launched its IEO platform Binance Launchpad. In January, BitTorrent – purchased by TRON – initiated a token sale on Binance Launchpad and collected $7.2 million in less than 15 minutes, hitting the crowdsale hardcap.

One of the main benefits of IEOs is trust. Since the crowdsale is carried out on a cryptocurrency exchange, the counterparty checks every project that wants to launch an IEO on its website. The exchanges do this in order to maintain their good reputation by carefully checking the issuers of tokens.

Evedo is the A-Z solution that unifies all businesses and participants involved in organizing events. It’s a marketplace, an ecosystem where performers, event organizers, night clubs, venues, attendees and sponsors can communicate in a safe and secure way.

“Our aim is to build a true ecosystem that will help the $850B+ event industry grow by connecting all parties without unnecessary middlemen”, says Evedo CEO Stoyan Angelov.

There is a growing amount of frustrations in purchasing tickets or running events fairly and securely, here are just a few:

• More expensive tickets
• Time loss
• Ticket Fraud
• Artist Management related problems
• Vast Artist Competition
• Lack of funding for future event
• Management Software Issues
• Poor planning

Evedo’s solution to solve these problems is a unified platform that will structure all related parties into one decentralized ecosystem. All of them will be transparently connected.

Event promoters need access to the identity of attendees for improved security and emergency response communications. Evedo ensures that 100% of all ticket holders are identified and associated with their respective tickets. This information is securely stored.

Evedo is the first decentralized marketplace and a global community where DJ’s, artists, dancers and any kind of performers with night clubs, event organizers, event infrastructure companies, sponsors and attendees come together all under one roof in a trustless platform that treats them right.

For more information, check out the video below

Website: https://evedo.co
Telegram: https://t.me/evedoco
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/evedo.co

IEO Platform: Bitforex Launchpad IEO
Opening Date: Tue, Apr 16th, 2019 5pm Hongkong time
IEO Closing Date: To be announced (UTC)

TOKEN DETAILS

Symbol: EVED
Blockchain Type: Ethereum
Role of Token: Utility

FINANCE INFORMATION

Public Sale Hard Cap: 2 400 000 USD
Total Token Supply: 160 000 000 EVED
Tokens for Public Sale: 80 000 000 EVED (50% of total token supply)
Public Sale Token Price: 0.0005 ETH per EVED
Public Sale Vesting Period: No lockup

Accepted Currencies: ETH

Token Sale Format: Standard
Lottery Ticket Allocation: Enter the IEO’s lottery ticket allocation
Private Sale Allocation: 16.9% of Total Token Supply

A bonus scheme rewards early investors. It's distributed within 7 business days after the ending day of token sale.
The first 100 participants are rewarded with 20% bonus.
Participants nos. 101-300 are rewarded with 15% bonus.
Participants nos. 301-500 are rewarded with 10% bonus.
Participants nos. 501-1000 are rewarded with 5% bonus.

THE TEAM

Members

Stoyan Angelov – CEO
Rick Graham – CTO
George Chisuse – CLO
Elena Kalpakchieva – CMO
Anton Aladzhov – CCO
Gencho Kerezov – Financial consultant
Petar Zhivkov – Blockchain engineer
Karim Hristov – Front end developer

Advisors

Jonathan Yunger
Jimmie Jeremejev
Sajid Kausar

LEGAL INFORMATION

Company Name: evedo.co
KYC: Required

The post Evedo IEO – The Blockchain Ecosystem for Events Cutting Out the Middleman appeared first on ChipIn.

While there is still a lack of women in technology across the board, blockchain is one area growing at an exponential rate with a worryingly extreme gender imbalance. With this in mind, we have compiled expert commentary from some standout female entrepreneurs in the space. By smashing stereotypes these women are blazing a trail for others and, in doing so, ensuring the world of fintech, blockchain and cryptocurrencies is no longer just a boys club.

There are many brilliant #women like @AmberBaldet @jinglanW @FahimaAnwar being influential in #blockchain and #crypto - but we need greater accessibility and involvement, for that, some business and development environments need to change.
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Citlali Mora Catlett, Strategy and Special Projects at B9lab

“Although women seem to be coming into parity with men, gender balance in all its dimensions is still not a reality. Issues remain, especially in the tech industry, including pay gaps, a low representation of women and women leaving in the middle of their careers.

In order for women to be on equal footing with men, business cultures have to encourage and actively promote a working environment of diversity, inclusion and equality, as well as countermeasures against income inequality and possibilities for women to be able to balance the high requirements of mastering the tech industry, while also reconciling career and family life.

Women in tech are the biggest allies to gender balance as they encourage other women to join the industry, serve as role models for future generations and contribute to finding solutions to improve the openness and inclusivity of the working environment.

Gender balance is essential not only for women but even more so for successful, innovative and striving businesses, economies, societies and politics – We all can gain from #BalanceforBetter.”

The post 6 Female Entrepreneurs in Blockchain – International Women’s Day 2019 appeared first on ChipIn.

As a result, many companies are looking to adopt blockchain technology at some part of their business model.

According to PwC’s 2018 Global Blockchain Survey, which polled 600 executives from 15 territories, 84% of respondents indicated some involvement in blockchain implementation.

As PwC notes, “It’s easy to see why. As a distributed, tamperproof ledger, a well-designed blockchain doesn’t just cut out intermediaries, reduce costs, and increase speed and reach. It also offers greater transparency and traceability for many business processes.”

While large corporations often have the resources to undertake a fundamental change in computational networking, other companies may struggle to bear the cost burden of adoption. With significant programming and developmental costs associated with implementation and upkeep, the expense of blockchain integration can be a barrier, but it doesn’t have to be.

Whether a company is looking to fully integrate blockchain technology or they are looking to decentralize certain components of their business process, it’s possible to keep costs low so that anyone can benefit from the blockchain.

Here are three steps companies can take to reduce the expense of blockchain integration.

1. Control Maintenance Costs

Integrating and maintaining blockchain technology can be costly if your company goes it alone. However, the blockchain has an expansive ecosystem of enthusiasts and developers who are routinely building components that can create a cohesive blockchain infrastructure. For example, Modules, components of applications that serve a variety of purposes, can be bought, reused, and repurposed so that a company’s developers don’t have to build everything from the ground up.

In other words, it’s possible to cut costs by relying on products that others have already built.

For example, the MESG marketplace offers pre-built modules that allow quick and cost-effective implementation of blockchain technology. By utilizing a marketplace approach to blockchain development, companies save time and money. Qualified and talented professionals are already building incredible blockchain products, and by embracing a veritable plug-and-play approach to the decentralized economy, organizations can apply and expand their use of blockchain technology without also taking on the developmental costs associated with the project.

2. Monetize the Process

Of course, companies that are on the cutting edge of blockchain integration can control their costs by monetizing their developmental work. For years, developers have posted their work to open-source platforms like GitHub, a practice that neither earns them money nor quantifies their work.

To be sure, platforms like GitHub are critical to the developmental process, and they play a role in the technological ecosystem, but for companies looking to offset the cost of blockchain integration, a marketplace approach provides a potentially lucrative distribution model.

When developers posting their code to a platform like MESG, they license their work, and they earn a commission each time it is utilized. In this way, organizations can share their work with other companies – something that makes the technology more useful and prolific – while also recouping a portion of their up-front investment in the blockchain.

3. Collaborate Effectively

The blockchain’s decentralized ethos extends beyond its technological underpinnings.

To put it simply, blockchain technology is the product of the collaborative efforts of thousands of individuals and teams. For organizations looking to adopt blockchain technology without breaking the bank, this community can be a critical asset.

For starters, there are numerous incubators – teams of investors and business experts who foster innovative projects – and these resources can contribute to a company’s successful implementation of blockchain technology.

In the blockchain space, Yellow Ventures is a team of entrepreneurs and investors who provide seed-stage support for companies pursuing cutting-edge technological solutions, including blockchain technology.

At the same time, strategic partnerships – collaborations between companies – can enhance a company’s implementation process without contributing additional expenses.

It’s evident that decentralized computing will continue to be a dominant expression of the digital age. Most companies are exploring the blockchain to some degree, and though it can be expensive to get off the ground, cost doesn’t have to be a prohibiting factor.

By utilizing pre-built resources, monetizing and distributing a developed product, and collaborating with strategic partners, any company can control costs, making it possible to pursue blockchain implementation without breaking the bank.

The post Three Ways to Reduce the Cost of Blockchain Implementation in Your Business appeared first on ChipIn.

Now that global concern is on the rise, governments are taking notice and looking for solutions to combat irreparable damage. Sustainable energy continues to be a top contender in the ongoing debate and is favored by many citizens. So much so, in fact, that a YouGov poll conducted in the United Kingdom found that nearly 9 in 10 people want to see their government increase the use of clean domestic energy and reduce their reliance on imported gas. However, even with a focus on sustainable energy looking forward, questions remain about how to implement strong, reliable systems that will benefit not just the environment, but the people living there as well. Is blockchain the answer government officials are looking for?

Though there are already countless uses for the emerging field of blockchain technology, perhaps none is more well known than decentralization. As is already the case with so many blockchain-based projects right now, the emerging technology inherently places an emphasis on decentralizing systems; but what does that mean for governments?

“The Bosses of the Senate,” Joseph Keppler courtesy Wikimedia

As more governments look to new renewable energy sources to fulfill the needs of everyone, they’ll also be looking at constructing new infrastructure to reach those goals. Unlike the current model in many areas that includes high centralization, blockchain technology can be the tool governments need to properly implement more efficient, decentralized sustainable energy initiatives. Out with the old, in with the new.

Due to the decentralized nature of blockchain technology, and the distributed systems it can support, government officials everywhere can look to it as a solution against large power companies holding de facto monopolies in areas. Duke Energy, operating in North Carolina in the US, for example, holds a market share of roughly 95% in the state. That’s one single company controlling the power needs of nearly the entire state. However, if we consider blockchain alternatives, there’s a much different story.

To give an example, let’s look to a project backed by the non-profit AI Grid Foundation, called the Eloncity Model. The model is offering a blockchain-based solution for the renewable energy sector that communities can—and already are—implementing as a sustainable answer for the future. The model focuses on decentralizing power infrastructure to take control out of the hands of a small group of corporations and put it into the hands of the people consuming it.

Rather than have an energy dependent on one large supplier, the model includes self-sufficient microgrids. Consumers generate, store, and use energy in the microgrids from their own locally produced renewable energy and can trade excess energy to others. Because everything is blockchain-based, not only are the microgrids running in a non-centralized manner, but everyone in the grid can see transactions in the ledger, creating open and transparent pricing for all. The World Economic Forum has even recognized blockchain technology’s positive impact and place in the energy sector, noting that:

“By letting go of intermediaries, blockchain transactions lower costs, speed up processes and result in greater flexibility throughout the entire system. It leads the way to a systemically more efficient, flexible and decentralized energy system.”

The AI Grid Foundation aren’t the only ones taking advantage of the new technology either. In Brooklyn, another blockchain-based startup is furthering the movement for sustainable energy microgrids too. Powered by Exergy from LO3 Energy, the Brooklyn Microgrid is taking the same decentralized approach and implementing it in an urban environment. The goal is to develop a connected network of distributed energy resources to improve electrical grid resiliency and efficiency.

In addition, projects like Eloncity and the Brooklyn Microgrid are also working on achieving financial incentives for both individuals and businesses to switch to more sustainable sources of energy. More efficient blockchain models offer far more cost-effective energy systems compared to traditional grids that consumers and businesses alike will to take notice of quickly. These types of blockchain-based initiatives in communities across the globe are a perfect resource for governments that want to reach sustainable energy goals. Regardless of how people feel about so-called “green energy,” people across the political spectrum start noticing when their wallets are affected. 

At the end of the day, regardless of where a community is, blockchain-based alternatives for the energy sector show great promise for the future. Not only are they already being implemented in communities across the globe, but they offer government bodies an innovative solution for mitigating energy crises around the world.

Unlike other methods of ushering in accessible sustainable energy, blockchain models offer resilient systems that prevent the monopolization of power, minimize the amount of intervention needed by governing bodies, and increase the overall efficiency for all parties involved. The end result is a system that’s beneficial for everyone and better for the environment. Blockchain may just be the answer governments everywhere are looking for; it’s time for more to recognize it.

The post Is Blockchain the Answer Governments Need for the Renewable Energy Question? appeared first on ChipIn.